Hey, all the congrats ' go to nasa n fair play to them, but with the success of this mission has anyone seen the news!!!!!!!!??? Bush is about to start a race to mars! apparantly he wants a manned space station (iss???) and a moon base as well as one on mars, is it spin or are we going to be on mars by 2020?
very happy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Curb the enthusiasm. It is not official. Nothing has been announced. There is no race to Mars. Keep in mind this is an election year. This stuff plays well in the media. It means nothing. NASA can't even find an air leak much less go to Mars. Even if it was official, it means nothing because the next president or the next congress can kill any program, especially a program that could not come to fruition for at least another 25 years. There are a lot of presidents and congresses in those 25 years. Congresses change every 2 years, presidents every 4 or 8 at the max. And when the hard dollar figures come down for such an endeavor, there will be many more places where that money could be effective in the eyes of the taxpaying voter.

The only thing that could finance a return to the moon would be a communist Chinese government launching a program to stake a claim on the moon which I'm sure they would like to being as aggressive and nationalistic as it is. Then it becomes more an issue of national security than an investment in space exploration. But I do not believe that the Chinese would be successful in that attempt. But NASA might try to convince Congress otherwise for obvious financial reasons.

Putting all our eggs in one basket(One planet)Will some day lead to the end of us...We need to put everything we got to make sure we can have more then one body of us some where else but on earth. That alone is worth doing everything in are power to do! It's the same old around in around garebag in nothing ever gets done...The only time it gets done is when some one trys like the x prize!...I say go for it!!!

from the looks of it bush is actually going to try and start something for getting to the moon and eventually mars. this is bush so odds are he won't put much money into it compared to what will be needed, but it's a good start and if the republicans are for it i can't see the dems not being, since it's scientific not military. obviously it's still a collosal venture and personally i don't think we'll get to mars within 20 years barring some minor miracle, but a moon base is definitely a valid goal to shoot for and beyond any doubt would pay itself off, though it may take 20-30 years to do so.

I don't see the purpose of a moon base other than just to be there for the hell of being there. But considering what it would cost, it would be an extravagance even the US can not afford. It's one thing to talk in terms of ideals, but every project costs real money that the taxpayer has to earn - and then pay.

I wonder how many space enthusiasts would continue to be in favor of a lunar base, or a manned mission to Mars, if it meant a cut in their take home pay. Would they pay $50/week for this? A $100/week? Of course, not. Why? Because it is not that important. Those dollars go to more immediate concerns. And unless one is wealthy, that's still big money to most working people. If the space program to Mars was funded exclusively by private donation, how many people here would make a $1000 donation just to be a "supporter of space exploration" if all you got for your money was a receipt"?

Some things in life are worth taxing the population pay for; Clean air, clean water, more cops on the beat, new roads and highways, better healthcare, a better country overall. But how much should the government tax the public in order to send an astronaut to Mars? The lunar program in the '60s was fantastic. A great technological achievement. But in the end, walking on the moon produced rocks and Tang and not much else. The lunar program was a cold-war political gambit that served really no other purpose. That is why scheduled Apollos 18-20 were canceled in 1970 and America never went back. Once it became clear that the Russians were going to make no attempt at the moon, the only reason for being there in the first place, came to an end.

If NASA wants to go back now, it must do what it failed to do in 1970 -convince Congress that there is another concrete reason, one beyond cold-war politics, for spending that kind of money. It can't just be a lot of lofty talk about Star Trek-style ideals - there has to be a really sound economic or national security reason.

yes, as a matter of fact there are several, and they all kind of pale in the short term behind the one based on a single isotope: He-3. do you have any clue how valuable that stuff will be, even if it's just from a scientific perspective, on earth before any mass production/mining efforts begin. i mean, we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars per ton. not only that, but also the advantage of ground based telescopes without any atmospheric interference is huge, and the same goes for surveillance stuff as well. there are other minerals on the moon worth mining other than He-3 too, but most of those are just because it's easier to build stuff on the moon using resources from the moon than it is to ship them there from earth.

While being less radioactive than tritium, Helium 3 is a radioactive isotope of Helium. Mankind is moving away from radioactive sources of power. Although it is being studied, thus far, no one has been successful in creating electicity fom the fusion of Helium 3 atoms.

To extract Helium 3 from the lunar surface, it needs to be harvested from the lunar soil at a ratio of 14,258 to 1. So in order to get 1 ton of helium, one needs to process 14,258 tons of moon dirt. Then after that, in order to process this Helium 3, one would need to heat the moon dirt to over 1400 degrees F. to liberate the gas. Setting up a mining operation like that on earth would cost billions. Setting it up on the moon would cost trillions. If it takes 10 billion dollars to send three guys to the moon and back, then it would cost 100 trillion to set up a He3 mining operation on the moon. In short, it would not be possible. The money to do that would exceed all the money on earth. If the moon was made of solid gold, it would still not pay to mine it. And, hypothetically, if you could mine all that gold, the price of gold wold plummet making it not worth the while. Lunar mining is a dream.

As far as surveillance, a satellite orbiting earth works pretty good. But if they did put a telescope on the moon, either trained on earth or trained on the heavens, it would certainly not be a manned mission to explore space. Certainly no need for a "moon base" or anything else to get people excited.

In short, 20 years will come and go and there will still be no lunar base, or Mars mission. Fifty years will come and you will see the same thing. It's not a rational next step.

In 1980, my dad and I had this very discussion while driving to a grocery store one night, I will never forget. It's one of those milestone items that stick in your head. Being a fan of "Space 1999", and assuming that the moon was ripe for exploitation, I bet my father that in 20 years, by the year 1999, there would be a permanent base on the moon. My father was not so optimistic. I assumed that the technology would be available, and thus it would be a fait acomplis. With the enthusiasm inherent in a teenager, I bet $1000 that I would be right. (Whatever $1000 was worth in 1999, we agreed.) Well, come five years ago, I was officially wrong. My father, of course, probably forgot that bet the next day. I'm tempted to remind him, out of pure nostalgia, and considering the topic is in the news these days, but, right now, I can't spare the $1000.

While being less radioactive than tritium, Helium 3 is a radioactive isotope of Helium. Mankind is moving away from radioactive sources of power. Although it is being studied, thus far, no one has been successful in creating electicity fom the fusion of Helium 3 atoms.

no one has been able to create electricity from He-3 because there isn't any on earth. you can't mine it because it doesn't exist on earth. and no we are not moving away from radioactive sources of power, we are moving away from hydrocarbon sources of power, and radioactive sources are still, and probably will be for a very long time to come, very attractive. and finally, He-3 is not very radioactive in the first place. while i will concede the point that there isn't a lot of He-3 on the moon as compared to, say, the gas giants, it would be the ONLY possible source for it in the human universe, and the amount of research that has gone into it is almost purely theoretical, so therefore demand would be extremely high and supply would be very very low, but still infinitely greater than the no supply that we have now.

"no one has been able to create electricity from He-3 because there isn't any on earth."

Actually, He3 has been discovered on earth, in very small amounts. But scientists have been able to create other small amounts of He3 since 1939 when it was first produced from the experimental process of nuclear fission, but have yet to generate electricity because the rate of proton emission is not high enough. If they keep working on the problem, it may one day come, but considering where He3 is located, and the cost to retrieve it, it does no good sitting on the moon. As I said, with the current technology, all the money in the world could not buy a mining operation that brings back He3. My guess is that the moon remains out of economic feasibility for another 75-100 years. Could be longer. Will not be shorter. That's why I won't get excited about Bush's speech.